


this is me trying

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Mates, Multi, Nessian - Freeform, Stillbirth, featuring mated nessian and nesta after years in therapy, feysand, healing and all that jazz, post acofas, sisterly bonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27548443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: Decades after Feyre banished Nesta from Velaris, Nesta comes back in the worst possible circumstances. After all, who knows of grief more than her?
Relationships: Feyre Archeron & Nesta Archeron, Feyre Archeron/Rhysand, Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 23
Kudos: 93





	this is me trying

**Author's Note:**

> Idk guys, don't ask me why I had the sudden idea to make everyone suffer. Angst is in my blood at this point. The whole concept of this fic is vaguely inspired by the Haunting of the Hill House, which is THE best portrayal of a family united in grief I've ever seen. As for the setting of this fic: it's been a lot of time since the events of Frost and Starlight. Behold, established, mated nessian and healed, well-adjusted Nesta. TW: stillbirth. 
> 
> title from taylor swift, the opening quote from florence + the machine, the ending quote from the haunting of the hill house cause why not.

> _but still you stumble, feet give way_
> 
> _outside the world seems a violent place_
> 
> _but you had to have him, and so you did_
> 
> _some things you let go in order to live_
> 
> _while all around you the buildings sway_
> 
> _you sing it out loud, who made us this way_
> 
> _i know you're bleeding, but you'll be okay_
> 
> _hold on to your heart, you'll keep it safe_
> 
> _hold on to your heart, don't give it away_
> 
> _you'll find a rooftop to sing from_
> 
> _or find a hallway to dance_
> 
> _you don't need no edge to cling from_
> 
> _your heart is there, it's in your hands_
> 
> _i know it seems like forever_
> 
> _i know it seems like an age_
> 
> _but one day this will be over_
> 
> _i swear it's not so far away_

* * *

Nesta finds Rhysand on one of the hundreds of the House of Wind balconies.

Standing with his back to her, he blends in the dark so well that she probably wouldn’t have noticed him, if not for the lights of Velaris; the city spreading below like a bejeweled carpet, like a bright halo outlining his figure.

She was on her way to find a drink – she hasn’t touched spirits in a decade, but maybe tonight is finally the night – but something about the sight makes her pause on the threshold.

They winnowed in such a haste, Cassian and she, that she did not even have a second to take a closer look at Rhysand. She cannot even recall the sight of his face when he appeared in their kitchen and gave them the news mere seconds before she was clutching at his arm, time and space warping around them.

And so she stays still, watching him now, thanks to, maybe, some morbid curiosity or maybe to something else she doesn’t dare to name.

‘’Thank you.’’ He says so suddenly that she twitches. ‘’For coming.’’

She has to bite on her lip to suppress the venom biting the roof of her mouth. _She’s my sister. Of course, I came, you prick._ – she would’ve replied back when she was still living here.

But it hasn’t been a case for many, many years now… and besides, she understands from where his words come from.

And so she simply takes a few stiff steps until she finds herself right beside him.

 _He must’ve been standing here for a long, long time._ – crosses her mind when she glances down at Rhysand’s hands; at this thin layer of fresh snow coating his knuckles, almost like powdered sugar.

Rhys doesn’t ask her how Feyre is, whom she left her with, and she doesn’t tell him. He probably knows it better than she does, anyway. They’re still and silent. Nesta’s sensitive ears catch only the faint, soothing sound of the wind, the almost inaudible flutter of snowflakes in the frosty air. It still amazes her, even after all this time, the things her body is capable of. Probably, if she really tried, she would be able to hear the heartbeats of all the Fae huddled inside the House, hear how they inhale and exhale, hear how they all grief in the heaviest, most terrible kind of silence.

Nesta doesn’t try though, so the only heartbeats she hears are the twin ones always beating in her chest - her own and it’s fluttering echo, soothing her like nothing else ever came close to.

She leans on the railing, letting the snow dampen the long sleeves of her dress. Cold does not bother her anyway; winter in Velaris is milder than spring in Steppes and she hasn’t been truly cold since she has accepted the mating bond, flames and embers of it forever warming her inside out. The Rainbow glimmers and twinkles miles and miles from them when she whispers, soft and slow:

‘’I am sorry for your loss.’’

Rhys whips his head towards her, violet eyes widened in surprise, but she continues before he can respond.

‘’And I am thankful that you send for me. Truly.’’

‘’She asked for you.’’ He says as if it explained everything, fixing his sight back on the view of the city. Maybe it did explain everything, for him.

_What agony, to feel her suffer, suffer yourself, and not be able to do anything about it._

Her heart clenches in her chest and, not even a second later, a wave of warmth spreads through her body, making her skin tingle. A soft caress which, she has already learned, meant _what is wrong, Nes?_

 _Everything. Everything. She was supposed to be_ happy. _I didn’t need to see her ever again because I knew she was happy. And what can I do now, if her own mate stands here helpless?_

Flames and embers, burning her gut. Hurt and helplessness rivaling hers reverberating in her bones.

_Nothing. You can do nothing, Nesta._

‘’I didn’t understand why.’’ Rhys continues unexpectedly, his voice as cold as the frosty wind. ‘’I don’t get why she wanted your comfort, out of everyone. ‘’

‘’And yet you came for me.’’

‘’She asked for you.’’ He repeats. ‘’So I brought you. I thought it will help but – but she’s just as – you did not change anything.’’

Nesta is positive she has never heard Rhysand sound quite so lost, stumbling on words and actions, his hands shaking on the railing and darkness gathering around him like a misty cloak.

He looks so desperate. _I guess that’s what a few decades when there is no hurt that cannot be soothed with a kiss does to you._

She has forgotten – how depended both of them were on a bond to fix everything, how seamlessly they adjusted to being mated, how easily they got used to acting as one person rather than two. No wonder Rhys doesn’t know what to do now.

She has forgotten how it all operated in Velaris, did her own damn best to banish Feyre from her thoughts. Had to do this, just to heal, to live, to figure out how to be happy on her own, how to be her own person, how to love Cassian, how to allow him to love her.

But she is standing now. Because Feyre sent for her because Feyre is hurting and nobody has the strength to tell Rhys what needs to be done.

_Nobody but the resident bitch of the family._

‘’Rhysand. You have to let her see the baby.’’

It’s like a punch; the sheer torrent of power exploding from his body at her solemn words. But Nesta is not afraid of him nor she has ever been. She stands her ground; raises her chin up and turns herself into a pillar of steel.

‘’It’s not your business.’’ He grits through clenched teeth.

‘’Oh, it very much is.’’ She keeps her voice calm, keeps her breath even. ‘’ Why would you take him from her? She needs to see him- listen to me! If you don’t let her see him, she will never quite come to terms with it.’’

‘’How can you – it will only make her suffer more.’’

_Out of sight, out of mind._

‘’No.’’ she steps closer; close enough to see how his eyes widen when she grabs his hand and squeezes it. ‘’She has carried this baby and gave birth to it and never got to hear it cry. Let her hold him, let her say goodbye, for Cauldron’s sake.’’

Rhysand blinks at her as if he did not understand the language she speaks in.

‘’Rhysand. You two will be okay. In a decade or so she will be pregnant again and this time, the baby will live. And it all will be just one shadow during an otherwise perfectly sunny day. You know that. Elain-‘’

‘’Don’t talk to me about Elain!’’

He wrenches his hand from her grip, stumbling on his own feet.

‘’Elain didn’t predict – this.’’

Nesta inhales deeply.

‘’Right vision. _Wrong time._ ’’

‘’Go ahead and tell Feyre that then. Tell her she should not grieve now, just because she will someday have another baby – go ahead, do that, and I will gladly throw you out myself.’’

‘’You don’t understand.’’ She suppresses Cassian’s anxiousness swimming inside her gut. _It’s not your fight, love. It’s not your battle._ ‘’Rhys- Rhys, I know you want to protect her, but you have to let her go through this. You need to let her feel this pain. You can’t shield her from this, not anymore.’’

For Nesta knows – and deep, deep down she suspects Rhysand knows her too – that Feyre is strong enough to go through this fire. Strong enough to bloom again, her courageous sister who needs trials and challenges much like Nesta herself does, who will grow from this pain like a tree sprouting fresh leaves after winter. 

And maybe it is not about Feyre’s pain, not truly.

For a heartbeat, none of them moves, none of them even breathes. Nesta, back straight and biting the inside of her cheek. Rhysand, avoiding her eyes, his own wild and desperate.

And then he lets out something between a sob and a laugh and collapses down.

‘’I can’t.’’ He whispers with his forehead resting on the metal of the railing, on his knees on the snow and sounding so alien that she can barely believe it’s his voice. Only shreds left from the High Lord she has come to known. _All the money, power, glory, all the riches and all the magic and even he cannot bear a burden this heavy._ ‘’Mother above forgive me, I cannot do this. I cannot – I cannot _bring her the corpse of our son to hold._ I can’t. I just can’t-’’

‘’I understand.’’

For Cassian – for Feyre – but mostly for the heart-shattering sadness with which he said _our son,_ caressing every syllable and every vowel, Nesta rests her hand on his trembling shoulder.

‘’You don’t have to do it. I will. I will bring him to you.’’

***

The body lays peacefully in the nursery and Nesta briefly wonders who set it down here before shadows coil in the very corner of the room and Azriel’s sad eyes meet hers.

‘’Hello, Nesta.’’ He says gently.

She bows her head in greeting.

What was the last time they have seen each other? Just last Solstice, wasn’t it? All of them drunk on the elderberry wine, Nesta and Elain dancing around the campfires with other females, hair unbound. Lucien teaching them all Autumn Court songs. The many secrets and kisses traded that night. It truly seems like years ago. Centuries.

‘’You will take him to Feyre?’’

‘’Yes.’’

She leans down, reaching inside the cradle and disturbing the mobile hanging above it in the process; blue crystals and silver stars twirl delicately, casting colorful freckles of light and miniature rainbows on the ivory silk covering the small bundle.

‘’Good.’’

Az’s always quiet as a cat, but, when he moves to stand close to her as she’s pulling the material down, she can swear she feels him tremble.

The baby is perfect.

 _How could he even be any other way?_ – crosses her mind. _Of course, he’s perfect._

She drinks him in; the parted lips, tiny like flower petals, the wisps of dark hair, wavy just like Feyre’s. The dark tint of his skin and ridiculously, _impossibly_ stunning leathery wings, every vein, every angle, and arch of them making her heart stutter in her chest.

Her father’s full mouth on this perfect face. 

Oh, what she would’ve given to be standing here and now not dressed in black. How she would’ve killed and begged and whored herself for her nephew, who was not even given a day, not even a night.

For those rounded cheeks are pale, not rosy. And when her finger caresses his small forehead, it’s just as cold as this metal railing on a balcony outside. Not for this world anymore.

What she would’ve given to feel his heartbeat flutter and to hear his cry, to see him wriggly and pink and _alive_ at Feyre’s breast.

‘’Thank you for watching over him.’’ The words die on her lips as she turns her head just in time to see a tear rolling down Azriel’s solemn face, dripping from his chin.

‘’Thank you for doing this for her.’’ He just says in return, not tearing his eyes from the boy even when Nesta takes it in her arms.

Her body knows what to do, rearranges itself with such an ease that it’s almost shocking. She’s so used to children now – orphans always tugging on her skirts, bastard boys and girls perched on her hips, on her shoulders. But carrying this child feels differently and not only because it’s just an empty shell - for a second, the briefest, tiniest second, Nesta feels like a child herself, once more seated in her mother’s bedroom and given baby Feyre to hold.

Support the head in the crook of your elbow. Keep yourself steady. Keep your grip gentle, yet secure. Love and protect, always, no matter what.

She has failed Feyre then. It’s only fair for her to do right to her little boy.

And maybe it’s her deathly powers, or maybe it’s this love never fully spent, never fully acted out – but strange calm washes over her as she leans her head down and presses a kiss to the baby’s cold, stiff skin.

_Wherever you are now, I hope you know how loved you are. How wanted you were. How big a hole you left._

_W_ hen she nods to Az and turns around to walk this long, long corridor to Feyre, her steps are light and silent, as if she was a ghost herself.

***

Feyre has never learned how to cry like a grown-up.

She has never learned to do it in any other way than with those hiccupping sobs, trembling gulps of breath in between each spasm which Nesta remembers from childhood, coming from outside her bedroom door at night whenever her sister woke up from a nightmare.

Nesta doesn’t think Feyre can recall it – the fact that she used to come to her for comfort and protection, not to Elain. That it was _her_ bed she used to climb into, pressing her little cold feet in-between Nesta’s skinny calves and burying her face in Nesta’s white nightgown.

And standing in front of the door now, all the years dissolve into nothing as Nesta hears the same sobs, the same hiccup, the same inhales….. but the heartbreak in them, oh, the heartbreak is beyond anything little Feyre could’ve even phantom.

 _Stay with me_. – she pleads in the most secret part of her and almost stumbles when Cassian responds with all his fire, all his passion, and devotion. _Always._

The door handle turns in her hand easily and Nesta enters into darkness.

No stars. No shadows. Just darkness, thick and oppressive, stealing oxygen from the air, making it impossible to breathe.

Nesta knows the way through. She’s been here before, rushed into the room careless of the dark. Ten steps – ten steps into this void until her knees collide with the wooden bed frame. And then it’s enough to sit down on the mattress and slide her hand on the soft, thick blankets to soon feel the shape of her sister’s body curled underneath them.

She follows the line of her thigh, her hip, her still-thickened waist until her fingers stumble upon the messy rope of her braid.

_What has become of you, Feyre? Mother, hasn’t she already earned her happy ending?_

‘’Feyre.’’ It takes all she has inside – and all the warmth and strength she can possibly leech of Cassian through the bond – to gently pull on Feyre’s trembling shoulder. ‘’Fee, sit up.’’

 _Fee._ In the darkness, Elain’s eyes gleam somewhere from the other side of the bed. Nesta must’ve stopped calling Feyre that when she was around six.

Feyre’s sobbing does not stop, does not pause except for a second for this painful, wheezing inhale.

And so Nesta does not sit her down or force her upright; she just watches as Elain unlaces her grip on the pillow, finger by finger, and when it’s done, she fits the baby in the cradle of Feyre’s arms, right against her heaving chest.

The door opens, then closes again, letting in a single ray of light.

Silence. And-

‘’ _My baby._ ’’ Feyre cries and Nesta can feel every possible emotion in her voice, all tangled up beyond understanding. ‘’Oh, Rhys.’’

Nesta can barely get up fast enough before Rhys scrambles on the bed and takes Feyre in his arms, the two of them with their eyes glued to those pale cheeks and those closed eyes and those wisps of dark hair, trembling, shattered in grief.

Darkness dissolves into pearly mist as Elain takes Nesta’s hand and they leave the room, biting on their lips hard enough to bleed, their feet soundless on the carpet.

On the bed, Feyre tightens her arms around her son, whispering – and her mate buries his face in her shoulder and weeps. 

***

Nesta wakes up at dawn, the first rays of the winter sun caressing her heated skin.

She’s more comfortable than she probably should be, after hours spent cramped in her old, too-small bed in the House with her head pillowed on Cassian’s chest. But his hand rests on the small of her back, his wing covers her body like a blanket, and his heart beats steady under her ear, and it’s hard – nearly impossible – not to bask in the warmth of this closeness.

Not to feel a _t home,_ when he is the only one who ever made her feel like that.

For a moment, she stays still. Her toes curl and uncurl, her lungs expand with each breath. With her eyes still closed, she recalls her nephew’s small face, the shade of his eyelashes, the stiffness of his limbs.

‘’Nes.’’

Cassian’s lips brush the top of her head, sending electricity down her spine. His arms tighten around her and she knows – she just knows –that she must have awakened him with this image. With Feyre’s mouth, their father’s mouth, so strangely fitting in Rhysand’s features.

‘’I’m sorry.’’ She mumbles against his bare chest. ‘’I didn’t want to do this.’’

‘’Don’t apologize.’’

When she raises her head up to rest her chin on his sternum, her eyes find his – so much concern in those hazel eyes she loves, so much pain it turns them darker.

‘’Am I a terrible person for wanting to come back home?’’ she whispers, lips stiff.

_Dusk. Dusk. Dusk._

Dusk. Pine trees surrounding the mirrors of crystal-clear, ice-cold lakes where she first submerged without terror, safe and sound in Cassian’s arms. Cottages, which she watched being erected, which she has helped to erect with her own bare hands. Pale sun and brutal, solemn rock. Songs of the priestesses, songs of the females washing clothes in the river. Noises coming from blacksmiths’ and stonemasons’, the echo of clashing Illyrian blades balanced out by the shrieking laughter of children, orphans, bastards alike.

The heart-stopping beauty of the first real Illyrian city, the hustle and bustle of it. Imperfect, work in progress, as both of them. _Home._

Before answering, Cassian lazily drags his hand along the line of her spine, then tracing the shape of her shoulder and caressing the column of her neck. And only when he cups her cheek and she leans into it, craving affection like a touch-starved cat, he says:

‘’If you are, I am too. I can’t bear to watch them like that.’’

Of course, it is. Bleeding heart, that’s all he has ever been, her mate. 

Something crosses her mind, makes the tips of her ears twitch.

‘’I can’t – I can’t hear anything.’’

No sobbing. No hiccups. Just silence and the wind outside.

Before Cassian can reply, she’s already on her feet, pulling on the cardigan she must have discarded on the carpet last night.

Before exhaustion pulled her under, she remembers – she remembers being picked up from the stone floor on the corridor. She remembers Elain, half-carried, half-lead between Lucien and Azriel, her head lolling as she drifted to sleep mid-step. She remembers Mor’s watchful eyes, set on this cherry-wood door.

And the crying. She remembers it too. She doubts she will ever forget hearing how Rhysand’s crying.

The House is drenched in the sun, light falling inside through the window frames along with the frosty breeze. Her hurried steps echo on the empty corridors as she’s rushing to this familiar bedroom, Cassian chasing her, cursing under his breath–

And then she stops abruptly when the open door greets her.

Rhysand is sleeping deeply on the messed-up bed, still as a stone figure. She feels her heartbeat in her throat. _Feyre, Feyre, what wretched thought came to her mind in those hours before dawn? Where could she be?_

‘’Nesta.’’

Nesta turns around and only her Fae grace saves her from landing on her ass on the floor when her eyes widen in surprise.

For Feyre is perched on the windowsill at the end of the corridor, the thick blanket she’s swaddled in spilling down like a train of a courtly dress. With her hair unbound and face ashen, she looks so mortal, so sixteen, so much like Nesta’s little sister, that it’s almost impossible to imagine that she’s the High Lady of the Night court.

‘’Don’t worry, please.’’ Feyre’s voice is raspy and rough from all the crying, but otherwise quite normal. She pats the wood next to her. ‘’Would you sit with us?’’

She’s still clutching the body in one arm, cradling it.

And Nesta thinks, as she slowly approaches the window, that this must be the most terrible sight of all she’s seen so far, in both her mortal and immortal lives – Feyre, basked in the glory of the morning, with baby in her arms. All wrong.

_Sweetheart? Do you need me?_

Again, this tug under her ribs, flames licking the inside of her chest.

_I am fine, Cass. Leave us to it, please._

There is only a mountain range visible from this sight of the House; white peaks and dark ridges, stark against the pink sky. Feyre doesn’t admire the view though; no, she keeps her face down, her fingers dancing on the baby’s head as if she couldn’t stop touching him.

‘’I don’t want him to be buried under the ground.’’ She rasps quietly. ‘’In cold and dark. But I don’t know- don’t know how to do it in any other way.’’

Slowly, so, so slowly, Feyre rests her head on Nesta’s shoulder and sighs.

‘’I tried to tell him all that I had to say this night. We both did. But in the end, what is there to say? Besides _I love you_ and _I’m sorry?_ I would’ve given everything, everything for him.’’

‘’I know.’’ Nesta presses a kiss to the crown of Feyre’s head. Something hot drips down her cheek, leaving a burning trail on her skin. ‘’And wherever he went, he knows it too. He knows how you fought for him. ’’

‘’I’ve never asked you. Do you know-‘’

‘’No. I’m sorry, but – it is a mystery even beyond me.’’ She wishes she did know. She wishes she could promise her sister that her little boy is safe somewhere, waiting for her. But neither Nesta nor Feyre ever desired half-truths and beautiful lies to soothe their pains. ‘’But I know there’s peace, after we pass. No pain, no hurt, ever. Just the blissful darkness.’’

Feyre caresses those lips – her lips, Nesta’s lips, their father’s lips – tracing their bows.

And then sags against Nesta, rests her whole body against her the way Nesta saw her do with Rhysand so many times.

And Nesta wraps her arms around her, around both of them, and sways her gently, like those decades ago in the long-gone mansion where they were born. In another life.

‘’In Day Court, they lock the bodies of their loved ones in crystal.’’ She whispers against Feyre’s locks. ‘’So as to keep them unspoiled forever, captured in time, forever shining in the sun. Would you like that? I can do it for him.’’

_I love you, little sister._

Another tear, even hotter one.

‘’Yes.’’ Feyre’s hand is steady, as she brushes a stray curl of her son’s forehead and then gently pulls the fabric over his face. Turning the boy into the corpse once again, putting her dream to sleep. Letting go. ‘’Yes, I think I would like that a lot, Nesta. Would you - would you stay with me?''

_I love you too._

Through the clenched throat and heart beating furiously in her chest, Nesta cries.

''I will, Feyre. As long as you want me too.''

It does not matter that they haven’t seen each other in decades, not even at all. All those years – stardust, snowflakes. Confetti.

And even when the sun fully rises above Velaris, they stay on this windowsill; tangled up together beyond separation, little girls grieving together once again.

Sisters, at last.

* * *

_i loved you completely and you loved me the same._

_that's all._

_the rest is confetti._

**Author's Note:**

> If I made you depressed, rest assured that I am def more depressed than you. Please, comment! Fic writers wither like Feyre in Sping Court at the beginning of acomaf without comments. Truly, every kind word means the world to me.


End file.
